Family members and kinship (lesson 6)
buwa, aamaa, didi, daai, bhaai, bahini — the relations every tourist hears at a homestay. Plus the kinship-as-address custom.
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FSI 1979, lesson 6. The longest lesson in the early sequence — Nepali kinship is precise and worth the time. Core terms: buwa (father), aamaa (mother), daai (older brother), didi (older sister), bhaai (younger brother), bahini (younger sister), hajurbuwa / hajurAamaa (grandparents). The lesson then teaches what every traveler learns by accident: Nepali uses these kinship terms to address strangers too. The middle-aged woman at the shop is 'didi'. The older man at the teahouse is 'daai'. This is not slang — it's the social default. Around minute 18 the lesson covers the in-law system (sasuraa, sasu) which is dense — skim if your trip is short.
More lessons
- beginner 26 min
Greetings, names, and numbers (lessons 1-2)
Opening Namaste, exchanging names, basic ho/hoina identity statements, and the cardinal numbers 1-10. This is the canonical FSI opener.
- beginner 19 min
This and that — yo, tyo, demonstratives (lesson 3)
Pointing at things and naming them. Yo (this), tyo (that), and the cha/chaina pattern for stating that something is present.
- beginner 13 min
Question words — ke, ko, kaha, kati (lesson 4)
All Nepali question words start with क. Drill the five most useful: what, who, where, how much, and which.
- beginner 15 min
I, you, we — pronouns and honorifics (lesson 5)
ma, hami, tapai, timi, ta — when to use which, and why mixing them up offends. Drills with the verb hunu (to be).
- beginner 21 min
Directions and places (lesson 7)
kahaa, yahaa, tyahaa — here, there, where. Asking where things are with the cha verb and locative postpositions.
- beginner 15 min
Time, days, and the clock (lesson 8)
Telling time in Nepali — kati bajyo, baje, ghanta. The seven days of the week, and morning/afternoon/evening.
Attribution
Audio courtesy of the US Foreign Service Institute (Public Domain) and hosted by Live Lingua. This page links directly to their CDN; we do not re-host or modify the audio.